SIDNE demonstrates impaired driving

MIDLAND It's just like you're driving drunk, except you're sober.

SIDNE is a modified go-kart that simulates impaired driving and was being demonstrated Thursday at St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Midland. SIDNE, short for Simulated Impaired DriviNg Experience, gives sober people the chance to know what it's like to drive drunk or under the influence of drugs. Thursday was the first demonstration of SIDNE in West Texas. Its makers hope it will make people stop and think before getting behind the wheel of a vehicle drunk.

"If we can save just one life, it's all worth it," Stop DWI Inc. Administrator Charles Hodges said.

Hodges said the electronic go-kart has two modes, normal and impaired, and a remote controls which mode the kart is in. When in normal mode, SIDNE drives like a regular go-kart and brakes, turns and accelerates normally.

But the flip of a switch can send the SIDNE driver swerving and smacking into cones and other detours.

In impaired mode, SIDNE has a one-second delay on breaking and turning. The result in a safe and controlled environment elicited chuckles from the crowd and driver.

However, on public streets and highways, those same results can be fatal.

Midlander Michael Hochman knows the results of impaired driving firsthand. About a year ago, Hochman's wife Patsy was killed on Loop 250 in Midland to a girl who was driving under the influence of marijuana.

Hochman decided to do something to prevent this from happening to someone else. He and his family donated funds to support SIDNE and its mission.

"Impaired driving is an epidemic ... we're trying to tell people how dangerous drinking and driving is. You could kill yourself and others," Hochman said.

Lucas DeLeon, 17, took SIDNE for a test drive and said, "it's intense." He said SIDNE will make him think a lot harder about ever driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

"It's like a regular car but you just try to control it, and it doesn't work," DeLeon said.

Hodges said they aren't out to promote prohibition, and he knows SIDNE will not stop anybody from drinking and driving. He said SIDNE is a tool used to discourage driving impaired and will hopefully save others from a fate similar to Patsy Hochman's.

"We're on a mission to educate others so nobody will have to feel like I feel," Michael Hochman said.

WHAT IS SIDNE?

>> What: A modified go-kart to simulate impaired driving.

>> Cost: About $25,000.

>> SIDNE is battery-powered and its two modes, normal and impaired, are controlled remotely. It will be used as an educational tool at West Texas schools, including those in Odessa.

>> Call: Charles Hodges at 687-1355 for information.